Bones
by Tadpole24
Summary: For six months he called her Temperance. Tonight he calls her Bones. ANOTHER tag for the finale. I can't help it.


**Yet ANOTHER tag for the finale....I've written 3 of these. I can't help it. And there's more ideas still rolling around in my head too. Damn you Hart Hanson and your dream team of writers. You trigger things in my head when all I need to be doing is studying!**

**Disclaimer: I own bones. 206 of them. Unfortunately, not one of them is in any way affiliated with David Boreanaz... *sigh***

..:::..

Bones

..:::..

He calls her Temperance.

He can't remember anything about their past as partners together but the thing that hurts her most is that he can't remember his nickname for her.

She remembers hating it at first. She asked him to not ever call her by it. Seeley Booth was a typical alpha male. He was strong, forceful and stubborn. And a complete jock. Temperance Brennan had been mocked by jocks her whole life. And here, in her own workplace, the place that she had finally found 'home' in; was a man who thought he could tease her with a patronising nickname.

It wasn't until she had worked a few cases with him that she came to see the value in the name. She would argue that it was silly for partners to have pet names for each other; it was something intimate lovers might do. But the arguments were with herself. She knew she liked the name; the familiarity of it. She enjoyed that Booth had his own way of identifying her. In a small way he was making her part of him.

She knows that she should have been offended by being "owned" by someone else. Someone as strong as Brennan didn't need another entity to belong to. She was her own person. And yet, the way his voice caressed the name as it rumbled out of his mouth each and every day made her crave it. Crave hearing his own personal way of branding her over and over again.

And now; now he calls her Temperance.

She feels a lump in her throat each time she hears her given name tumble clumsily from his mouth. She knows that his name for her is somewhere in the far recesses of his jumbled up brain. She knows because he frowns every time he calls her Temperance. She wants to put the pieces together for him, but she knows that if she does it won't be the same. She knows that when he remembers that one word, he will have remembered it all. So she waits patiently, staring intently at the man who has given her so much in her life, wishing desperately that he could hear her thoughts.

If he could though, he would know everything.

And at the moment, she wasn't sure whether he should know everything.

She remembers her partner waking up, mumbling nothingness from his deep slumber and then looking directly into her eyes. That moment, right there, it was perfection. Absolute bliss. She had been waiting for him to wake up for so long. She had been terrified that it wasn't going to happen. She had waited there for him all day and all night for over 96 hours. Waiting, just to tell him the truth. That by all definitions of love, she was feeling it towards him and had been for some time.

Half a second and three words can change everything.

'Who are you?'

Now her three most hated words in the dictionary.

Her face had fallen, she could feel it. She had backed away from the hospital bed, staring in horror at the face of the man she loved. Stunned. Shocked. Hurt.

Scared.

She hadn't believed in a 'cosmic balance sheet' before then. But now, as she stood alone in the cold hospital corridor, waiting for the doctors to complete their analysis of her partner, she thought she understood the concept.

She had wanted to bring a life into this world. And for that to occur, a life had to be taken from her.

Instant Karma.

When she went back into the hospital room, Booth had been sitting up. He had a dazed look on his face.

"They say that you and I are partners. You're not FBI though."

"That's right."

"What'd you do? Blackmail me or something?" he smiled a little.

Brennan saw how he would think it was funny, but she couldn't laugh. This was real. It was all real. He really couldn't remember anything. She dabbed at her eyes, not wanting him to know how close they had been. He couldn't know about her, if she told him, it wouldn't be him remembering her. It would only be a synthesised memory.

With a hardened gaze, she stared at him, "No, why would I do that?"

He looked startled by her coldness, "I-I don't know."

It had only gotten harder since then. She had re-introduced herself as Temperance Brennan. The empty shell that was Booth had no response; only to repeat the name 10 times over to help him remember it. That throttled her to the core. He couldn't even remember how to remember. His FBI training had gone on break in his brain, as well as her name.

She drove him back to his place. The doctors told her to make sure he wasn't left alone for more than 12 hours at a time. The drive home had been uneventful. No fun bickering. No fight for who got to drive. A part of her was definitely missing. She was half of a whole and she knew he could feel it too.

She wanted to tell him some things. She knew that the others had. Every time she would visit with Thai at hand he would tell her another story of how his life had been working with her team. But never her. One night he told her that he had seen Parker that day and recognised him the very instant he did. He told her that he felt like he had some control back in his life.

She had started to cry. But she pulled herself together. No need to make Booth feel guilty for making her realise that she had no control over her own life.

He had watched her sleep on his couch. Her features softened. He knew her. That much he was guaranteed. He knew her better than she knew herself. But there was something missing. A link. He had regained so much of his memory in the last few months, so why couldn't he figure this one out? He was frustrated with himself; he wanted to tell the sleeping woman that he loved her. He was sure what they had had as partners was something intense; But the link was still missing.

She had apologised for her nap on his lounge later that week by cooking him a special dish. Mac and Cheese. She told him that it was a favourite of his. She didn't tell him the special ingredient though.

"Temperance?"

She looked at him; looked at his frowning features. Even after 6 months the name he called her didn't feel right.

"I think I remember something."

She doesn't get her hopes up. He says this to her often now. It's usually about Parker or someone from the lab. Still she looks at him with focus; she wants him to know that she is there for him.

"I remember someone telling me that putting nutmeg in macaroni and cheese gives it something extra."

She wants to scream at him, "It was me." But she just nods calmly. He's almost there, but not quite yet.

He frowns again. Deeper this time though. She holds her fork, suspended somewhere between her plate and her mouth. She's holding her breath. Her hand shakes and she warns herself yet again to not get her hopes up. She tries to think of anything else but the thought that her partner might be coming home to her.

The knot in her stomach tightens as he looks up at her finally.

The brown of his eyes is somehow brighter and he smiles his charm smile.

She pushes everything aside and runs to him, crushing him in a flurry of arms. There's so much that has to be said in that moment, but he beats her to it.

For six months, he called her Temperance.

Tonight, he calls her Bones.

..:::..

**I'm gunna Sweets talk you into reviewing...No, that's not a typo, I'm gunna talk like Sweets and so TOTALLY get you to submit an AWESOME review. :)**

**Ta**

**Em**

**xx**


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